People often talk about the future of the book; strangely, no one in the UK has recently thought to examine the prospects for the book industry in public. So the Free Word Centre's debate on the future of publishing was a first, and very interesting it was, too.

As it turned out, the headline news from this event, which I chaired with a panel of two influential contemporary publishers (Faber's Stephen Page and Canongate's Dan Franklin), a self-styled techno-geek from the BBC (Bill Thompson), and a very senior Google person (Santiago de la Mora) was all about Google.

De la Mora's position is, he says, to try and find readers for every book, whether it is in or out of print. He claims that around 75% of books are out of print. "It means zero revenue for the author." To those who object that 25% ARE in print, he smoothly replied that "the tragedy is that if you want to be published, read and earn a living from books", out-of-print books get forgotten, or lost. Silkily avoiding the all-important copyright issue, he declared: "We believe the internet can actively be helpful and give longer shelf lives to books".

Inevitably it was this that caught the ear of the trade press, but Margaret Drabble, who was in the audience, rightly pointed out that Google's declarations of "doing no evil" hardly addressed the much larger copyright questions posed by the Google Print Initiative. What struck me about de la Mora was that he was happy to argue, quite effectively, the minutiae of Google's policy, on a fairly narrow front. When challenged about the big picture of the company's long-term plans, he became evasive. Perhaps no one at Google knows, but I doubt it.

But the real disappointment of an evening devoted to looking into the future of the book world was that the Amazon representative (Gordon Willoughby) pulled out at the last minute – and didn't provide a substitute. Rebecca Swift, the organiser of the evening, had gone to some trouble to get so many key players into one room, and Mr Willoughby's non-appearance was a real blow to her ambitions for the event.

Anyway, despite these backstage irritations, the occasion was one that the capacity audience, who participated vociferously, seemed to enjoy. Amid the talk of apps, clouds, and digital strategies, I took away a strong sense that publishing in 2010 is accommodating quite well to the changing editorial and marketing landscape.

There were a number of literary agents present. Clare Alexander, one of the UK's most influential agents, spoke for many when she declared that she was pretty much indifferent as to how her writers' work reached its audience. What she cared about was that the business model for the distribution of this "content" was fair to all concerned, writers and publishers and booksellers alike. That, in a sense, is the nub of the argument currently being debated throughout the world of books. As the Free Word debate illustrated, no one knows what the outcome will be. All we can say for certain is that we are closer to a resolution of the issue than we were 10 years ago. My own guess is that there will be the beginnings of clarity on the matter within three to five years, maybe sooner.

Many writers today are also learning to adjust to a changed environment. Among the audience was the veteran author Ray Connolly, who has been serialising The Sandman, his new novel, for free on his websiteHe has previously discussed his self-publishing activities in the Guardian, and told me that "on the day the Guardian article was published I got 50,956 hits to my website. And the piece appeared virtually simultaneously on more than 40 websites and blogs, many in the US. That made all the difference. Otherwise Fleet Street ignored the venture." For a writer, visibility is everything, and, Connolly was simply pursuing the eternal quest for an audience, at this stage, as an online experiment. He adds that "I've more than fulfilled any expectations I had. So I've been very pleased. It was, after all, only the first step in an experiment."

The Sandman's serialisation, plus daily downloads in 18 countries, including the Ukraine, Russia, Japan, India, all the big European countries and the US, comes to an end this week. After that – and here's where old style publishing kicks in – Connolly hopes to sell his work, in book form, at the Frankfurt book fair.